Ripping Off Bandaids
by emilythepan
Summary: No one dares question the princess. Shenanigans ensue when Harry's ex-fiancé comes back to take over the family company. Someone ready the bar - there's gonna be casualties. - HP/PP and TR/HG/DM. Rating will change accordingly.
1. She's a Bitch

Revamp, revamp! New story, one chapter – let's hope I actually finish one of my multi-chapter stories for once.

It's a hope.

 _She's a Bitch_

 _(_ but you get over it)

chapter one

No one dares question _the princess_.

"Who's the fucking princess?" snapped Harry. His hand went up in a sweeping motion before chopping back down. "And where's Hermione? I need Hermione or the closest bottle of gin in the building before this is over, Ron, I swea— _Hermione!_ Over here—no, gah! By the door!"

"Someone throw a chair at Pothead's skull before I do," muttered Draco.

"Go piss on someone else's day, dickface!"

"Today's your day, Harry," Blaise calmly stated, his eyes never leaving his screen. "We have a schedule we strictly adhere to."

"Not that chair!" Luna leaped into the man's path. "I'm planting sunflower seeds there."

One silver sleekly-groomed eyebrow ticked. "I'm afraid to ask _why_."

"'Cuz your desk's closest to Blaise's happy vibes."

" _What?_ "

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Harry aggressively wiped his glasses. " _Hermione!_ "

With maximum flailing and minimum success, he managed to wave the irate-looking woman over to his cubicle. "What, Harry?" she snapped. "I have three extra cases to finish because _dickhead_ also decided to fuck with my day." Her voice got louder towards the end.

The dickhead in question simply flashed her a gleaming smile in return.

"I swear, one day, I am going to tweeze all of his pubic hair off," she snarled. "He doesn't deserve wax."

Harry dropped his head back wearily onto his chair.

"What else is new?" Ron moaned. "He's such a prat."

Luna swaggered over with a dreamy smile. "Just a fair warning from Blaise, Hermione, but Draco's threatening to add another case if you're," she imitated the taller man's usual stance, "'too busy chatting up your old squeezes.'" And with that, the dreamy woman floated away to the abused tea-break table.

"My _God_ ," Hermione whispered. She thumped her head twice. "Sorry guys—I'll skin his hide when I get the chance." Half turning away, she asked, "Do you think Tom'll help?"

"He does seem to be sniffing after your skirts, so there is that."

"At least there's a fighting chance."

Ron looked over his friend's shoulder, glimpsing over at the blinding monitor. "Huh, so you got invited too."

"To what?" Harry muttered, his hand covering his eyes, glasses limp in the other.

"The Princess's welcome party, mate."

"Which leads me back to my original question: Who in the name of Draco's current flavor of the hour is _the bloody princess?"_

"That," a prim tone answered, "would be _me_."

Both men spun back. A pair of glasses fell to the ground.

Pansy Parkinson stood in an afternoon Chanel tea-dress, black-tipped nails accenting hands that quietly clicked when she adjusted her phone. Large sunglasses covered a good portion of her eyes, but were lowered enough so that one could see the devilry prancing in their depths.

She leaned over to Harry, arms coming down to situate themselves on the arms of the chair. Harry closed his eyes and sighed and wondered when life got better after graduate school.

"Long time no see, _ex-fiancé_."

* * *

Rating will change accordingly as the story progresses. I have the skeletons of an outline, but nothing serious. This will most likely be a light-hearted fic with occasional angst (lots of angst), some traditional bed-rocking, and maybe a love story (or two. Stop me).

xoxo


	2. I'm not a Pussy

Don't start to expect quick updates – it never ends well and initiates the curse of 'No-Updates.'

I'll probably post these short chapters once a week, give or take. Note, there's still a skeleton of an outline, so anything dramatic will probably be on the fly.

No promises.

 _I'm not a Pussy_

(in which men get wasted together)

chapter two

"You fucked the _Princess_?" Ron exclaimed, his words slurring.

Harry growled. "Her name's _Pansy Parkinson_ , and _yes_ , if it makes you feel any better, I shagged her." He took a long, hard swig. "Several times. On several occasions." He pointed to Ron's wedding ring. "Take, for example, your wedding."

"My _wedding—_ "

"In the Bride's Parlor, to be precise."

An angry squawk managed to fly over the rest of din in the tavern. "You fucked _Pansy_ during my wedding! God's nuts, I didn't even know you two were even in a thing!" The red-head clutched his head with one hand while the other threatened to smash a beer bottle over Harry's head. "Fucking at my wedding," Ron muttered. He took a desperate swig.

Harry, rather taciturn at this point, took it upon himself to swipe at the beer.

He calmly waited for his friend's choked sputtering to stop before continuing. In the meantime, however, Harry lazily gazed over his surroundings. Dimly lit lights lined the low ceiling before narrowing down to solid wood floors tempered with age. The bar he sat at was empty save for him and Ron and a mildly-surprising pink concoction that tasted better every time he sipped from it; the booths looked close to bursting though, and well fuck him if that mousy brown head of curls giving _fucking Riddle_ (wait, he thought belatedly, _fucking Riddle?)_ a lap-dance didn't resemble a certain someone he knew.

Mousy head. Incorrigible curls.

His mind churned. And so did his gut, but he wasn't sure if it was from seeing _someone_ lap-dance Riddle (Ron had proceeded to wave over another beer at this point), or the fact that the pink concoction was finally getting to him.

Fuck—he knew he should have kept drinking the Cosmos. Damn the world if it was too 'Sex In the City,' he needed a fucking _Cosmo_.

Pansy always made fun of him for drinking Cosmos. Green eyes blearily looked to the clock. Two…two…two a.m.—good enough.

He and Pansy usually stayed up till two watching the telly.

Fuck the telly; Harry shook his head.

But first, he needed to bleach his brain of seeing Hermione vigorously rubbing her derriere (bleach to the power of grass-stains-bleach) all over Riddle's suspiciously dark pants—

(was that a stain? God, Pansy would be just _roaring_ with laughter—)

—and stop Ron from ordering another beer because he sure as hell wasn't the DD today (double d's, his brain drooled.), and where the hell was he again?

Right. The pub. Because he'd needed a stiff drink.

Harry sniffed into his drink, frothy bubbles making their way into his nose. After briefly coughing, he turned to Ron.

A Ron who was no longer there.

Where the fuck was Ron?

On further inspection, he saw a dirty piece of paper squashed into the neck of one of Ron's beers. Plucking it out of the neck took some hand-eye coordination (he only missed once—boo-YAH), and the hastily scrawled note made him squint.

 _hArry,_

 _gtg parvati wnts mee hme nd ur sorry face is turnin me aff. stop BLLOODY loooking at mione. its creppy man. stop cockblocckking RIDDLE and stop fucckin drinkeing te pink shit u keep hlding. you loook complttly wasted btw. get laid._

 _RONNNNNN_

 _PEE ES: dont u dare fuckin ordr a cosmo u pusssy_

Harry looked at the note for a while. A barmaid came over to take the empty beer bottles. A single thought kept running through his head again and again and again.

 _I'm not a pussy._

His mind replied in a voice that eerily resembled Pansy's:

 _You're a fucking pussy_.

He could practically _taste_ the vitriol.

* * *

Drunk notes are a thing. And they make my head hurt sometimes when I'm still capable of reading.

Don't worry, Pansy will appear in the next chapter (probably!) and Tom will pop out sooner or later.

All mistakes are my own; I am just too lazy to go back and fix my errors (sorry!) and look it over.

xoxo


	3. Meaningful Conversations

It's almost been a week! Fear not, I have returned (even if people didn't want me too). I have an idea of where I (sort of) want to go. Any and all feedback is welcomed!

* * *

Meaningful Conversations

 _(between the bitch and the serpent)_

chapter three

* * *

Draco Malfoy thanked the barista and took his venti Teavana blackberry mojito from the frazzled girl's hand. His masterfully crocheted dusky blue Muffler scarf laid loosely around his neck as he took a careful sip of his drink, letting the taste settle on his tongue before swishing it around his mouth.

"You look so pretentious when you do that," a smoky voice said behind him. "I thought the Bitch-Witch had tamed you."

Pansy Parkinson sidled up next to her best friend. "Doesn't it get tiring to be so obnoxious?"

Draco took another sip. "Occasionally. After all, I get to be the asshole of our trio while Blaise is the constantly sighing mediator."

"And what am I?" She carefully checked her French manicure. "Am I outrageously sexual deviant by default then?" They walked towards a section of excruciatingly expensive boutiques. "I wouldn't disagree with that."

"Three out of four people with some modicum of taste would disagree," he said dryly. "You're a public health hazard as it is."

"If they had your sense of taste, perhaps." She eyed his Muffler with disdain. "What has Hermione done to you?"

"Just last night she made me watch her barbaric feline," he sniffed. "I have cat-hair in places there should never be hair."

"That's because you wax."

Pansy approached a set of heavy glass double doors. She looked at Draco, her neatly tweezed eyebrow rising in a smooth wing. Her phone beeped.

Draco gave her a 'bitch please' look.

She narrowed her eyes, cropped black hair swishing around her chin. Red lips pursing, she made to open the door. "Why do you have to such a prat?"

"Didn't we just go over this?" he replied silkily and slithered into the store before the door could hit his heel. "Is there a reason we're here? I'm meeting Hermione in an hour." A sleekly dressed store attendant hurried over to them. "She's not as horny if I'm late to her flat."

Pansy sighed and gestured to a tiny purse hanging under a bright light; the woman scurried to bring it over.

Twenty minutes later, they were still staring at the same purse.

"Ugly piece of work," Draco muttered. "What was Lagerfeld smoking when he created this monstrosity?"

"Much as you were when you bought that scarf," Pansy pointed. She ushered over Karhly. "I'll take it. And the one by the shelf."

"Who are you buying these for?" Draco inquired. "They're not your style."

"What _is_ my style, then? Tell me, famous designer."

"Pot." He handed over his debit card. "Occasional head."

"If you're insinuating Potter, you wouldn't be wrong." She thanked the beaming senior cashier and took her purchases. Handing back his card, she noted, "I _was_ his fiancée, after all."

"A fact you told nearly no one about." Light summer breeze greeted them as they left the boutique. "Awfully strange of you," he added.

"Don't," she said softly. "You won't like where this'll go, Draco."

Draco looked at her.

She said nothing.

For the next ten minutes, they swaggered in silence to his car. When they reached the slightly beat up 1969 Daytona Yellow Corvette convertible, Draco turned the key in the door-hole. "You know I would kill for you, right Pansy?" he turned to her. "My mother and father would agree. As would Blaise."

She gave him a disparaging look. "Your sentimentality disgusts me."

"I tried," he replied deftly and slid into the seat smoothly. "I'll see you at the office?"

"With my battle-suit on." He laughed and drove off with a roughish wink, ignition thundering.

Pansy looked after her childhood rival with a sort of sad fondness. Another beep chirped from her phone. She checked it with a forced carefulness. Her knuckles were tight and white as she slid across the screen and typed, nails clicking against glass.

 _2:43: Don't play with his heart Riddle._

Almost immediately, her phone buzzed.

 _2:44: He shouldn't play with what's mine._

Her heart dropped.

* * *

And that's all for now! I wasn't originally planning for it to be so…dramatic, but that's the direction this story wants to go, and I'm powerless against my muse. Spineless, too.

I'll have another update in a week or so. They'll all be short and sweet like the past few, so if you're expecting them to be longer, I'm sorry to say, but it's not going to happen! At least, not if you want to wait months between updates. Oops.

Until then.

xoxo


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